Junction Tales

We are feeling blessed to offer an evening with two of the UK’s finest jazz performers and composers in the intimate setting of the Pump House Theatre. Bringing together long-time collaborators and friends, Grammy-winning saxophonist Tim Garland and celebrated pianist Gwilym Simcock, we are expecting a wonderful evening of beautiful, life-affirming music, their shared love of contemporary, melodic jazz and intuitive improvisational skills on full display as a duo.

 

They have toured the world and recorded many times together across two decades, including as part of their acclaimed Lighthouse Trio. This special duet performance features music by both, as well as favourites from the jazz cannon, capturing their agility and lyrical sensibility. Tim will also be featuring the extremely rare mezzo-soprano saxophone amongst his on-stage collection.

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We will also be welcoming back Worshipful Company of Musician's Tina May Award 2024 winner Nico Widdowson with his Trio. You may remember him as the pianist for the Fergus Quill Trio last year, his virtuosic, occasionally wild-eyed playing one of the highlights of our festival experience. This young man has talent in abundance and we are delighted to hear his trio as we anticipate their debut album which will be revealed later this year.

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More about Tim

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Born in Essex but raised in Kent, Tim took up the saxophone in his teens, studying at the Guildhall School of Music, where his lifelong embrace of both modern jazz and classical idioms began to take shape. He released his debut album in 1988, joining Ronnie Scott’s band a year later, but it was after the release of his second album (as bandleader) - ‘Enter The Fire’ in 1997 - that he found himself in the company of the legendary Chick Corea as part of his Origins sextet. This was a defining musical relationship that would take Tim across the globe multiple times, undertaking seventeen years of artistic service in several of Corea’s projects including The Vigil. More than just a sideman playing tenor and soprano saxes, bass clarinet and flute, Tim also won a Grammy for his symphonic orchestrations on Corea and Gary Burton’s timeless ‘The New Crystal Silence’ album from 2007, Tim’s rare polymath talents truly unveiled.

 

Throughout this time, Tim continued composing and releasing several of his own albums, his 2016 CD ‘One’, winning him the Jazzwise Reader’s Poll Album of the Year award, proof if needed, of his unusual position as both a composer of great depth and imagination whilst being a world class improvisational talent. We are so lucky to have him!

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A musician of extraordinary energy, Tim has also managed to find the time to have been an important sideman for Bill Bruford, Joe Locke, Jacqui and Alec Dankworth (separately), Clark Tracey and too many others to mention, his discography stunning and lengthy in scope. The original lineup of The Lighthouse Trio (with his duet partner Gwilym and percussionist Asaf Sirkis - who played with Emma Rawicz at our debut festival!) celebrated twenty years together in 2024.

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Tim has also been deeply involved in the crosswinds between modern composition and jazz, fulfilling commissions from several of the world’s top orchestras, including a double concerto from the LSO, The Royal Northern Sinfonia, a cello and sax concerto from the CBSO, and the BBC Concert Orchestra amongst his many collaborations, his creative arranging skills highly praised from a broad swathe of artists and organisations including Jean Luc Ponty, John Patitucci, The Royal Holloway and Westminster Choirs, the Catalan National Cobla Group, the LPO, the London Session Orchestra and NYJO. He also writes music for TV and films.

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Tim has been a research professor at  Newcastle University and The Royal Northern College Of Music, as well as a regular visiting professor at The Royal Academy Of Music, London. He has led workshops around the world and been Visiting Artist at Leeds College of Music and Oriel College Oxford amongst others. He has twice been a judge in the BBC Young Jazz Musician Of The Year Award.

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More about Gwilym

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“Gwilym is one of the most exceptional musicians that I have ever known... he’s a really significant force in music.” Pat Metheny

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Similarly to Tim, Gwilym’s journey into the seemingly oppositional worlds of classical and jazz music began early. The young Welsh prodigy attained the highest marks in the country at the age of eleven for his Associated Board on both piano and French horn before studying classical piano, French horn, and composition at the prestigious Chetham's School in Manchester. After being introduced to jazz by pianist and teacher Les Chisnall and bassist and teacher Steve Berry, Gwilym moved to London to study jazz piano at The Royal Academy of Music with John Taylor, Nikki Iles and Grammy winner Geoff Keezer, graduating with the Principal's Prize for outstanding achievement.

 

Swiftly recognised as a remarkable talent, prizes followed, winning the Perrier Award for Young Jazz Ensemble in 2001, and a few years later winning the Rising Star gong at both the BBC Jazz Awards and British Jazz Awards of 2005. In 2006, Gwilym was the first jazz musician to be selected for the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme.

 

By the time of ‘Perception’, his BBC Jazz Awards nominated debut release as a bandleader in 2007, Gwilym had already appeared on two Tim Garland albums as well as nine others including Bill Bruford’s Earthworks and Malcolm Creese's Acoustic Triangle, his exceptional gifts highly sought-after. Since then, Gwilym’s career has been unstoppable. He has toured with a who’s who of musical greats including Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland, Bobby McFerrin, Nigel Kennedy, (The Lighthouse Trio with Tim and Asaf naturally), and five years with U.S. guitar legend Pat Metheny, appearing on his 2020 album ‘From This Place’. He has released six further records as a leader including his Mercury Prize nominated solo album ‘Good Days at Schloss Elmau’ in 2011 alongside a myriad of collaborative projects including three albums with The Impossible Gentlemen who he co-founded.

 

Gwilym’s dazzling talents have also been in much demand in the classical sphere,  composing works for larger classical ensembles, chamber orchestras and even for the BBC Concert Orchestra for the Proms. As versatile as he is imaginative, he has also written music for television, dance and the stage, and has frequently appeared on British television and radio, guest presenting ‘Saturday Classics’ on BBC Radio 3, and mentoring and accompanying the finalists at the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year awards.

 

An extremely well-travelled musician, Gwilym still finds time in his itinerary to hold down a post as Professor of Jazz Piano at the Royal Academy of Music whilst being in high demand for teaching and masterclasses. In November, the excellent ACT label will be releasing ‘Big Visit’, the first collaborative album by Gwilym and the rising saxophone star Emma Rawicz.

 

More about Nico

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Nico graduated with a 1st class degree from Leeds Conservatoire in 2018 and has been incredibly busy since. A key member of fellow Leeds alumni Fergus Quill’s boundary-stretching projects Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band and The Fergus Quill Trio as well as being a founding member of the Ethio-jazz funky trio MABGATE, Nico’s stride piano meets free jazz impulses always lending a surprising edge to whichever project he is working on. Charismatic and with great stage presence, he has played at festivals including We Out Here, Love Supreme, Manchester Jazz, Leeds Jazz Festival and The EFG London Jazz Festival, his recorded music appearing on Gilles Peterson’s BBC Radio 6 show, Jamie Cullum's and Deb Grant’s shows on BBC Radio 2, Jazz FM, and Worldwide FM amongst many leading radio platforms.

 

Nico’s own trio has been a formation since he graduated and now that he has left behind the wild improvisational badlands of the dynamic Leeds jazz scene for South London, his Duke Ellington meets Monk meets free jazz energy and techniques have been honed in the heat of performance. His exceptional talents has seen Nico deservedly win the prestigious Worshipful Company of Musician's Tina May Award in 2024 and the trio will be releasing their debut album later in 2025. He will also be performing at the award-winning Houghton Festival later in the summer.

 

Nico Widdowson – piano

Joe MacLaren – double bass

Jordan Hadfield – drums